The Nikkei 225 average rose 253.48 to 19958.08. The Topix Index of all TSE First Section issues fell 10.95 to 1640.60. Advancing issues led decliners 661 to 624, with 120 unchanged. Volume was 759.72 million shares.

Investment trusts bought actively and spread a sense of relief among brokerage dealers and individuals to buy actively, said Hidenori Kawasaki, general manager of equities at Kokusai Securities.

Takeda Chemical Industries
continued rallying on expectations for the company's expanded share in the diabetes treatment market after its rival
Sankyo
announced Wednesday a plan to halt immediately the sale of its diabetes treatment Noscal, traders said.

Meanwhile, Sankyo rebounded sharply Friday from recent falls on the view that the issue was oversold, traders at foreign brokerages said.

Auto stocks also rallied on expectations for buying by investment trusts and on signs of a rise in demand for cars.
Toyota Motor
announced Wednesday that its domestic production rose 14.6% to 301,627 in February compared with the same month a year earlier. Toyota Motor rose 170 yen to 5,110 yen, while
Honda Motor
rallied 130 yen to 3,970 yen.
Nissan Motor
and
Mitsubishi Motors
also ended higher.

Softbank
plunged 14,000 yen to 87,000 yen on selling by institutional investors who sought to book gains ahead of the fiscal year-end, and following a Nikkei News report in late afternoon that the Internet firm is considering a 300 billion yen new share issue.

Hitachi
and
Sega Enterprises
fell after Rambus of the U.S. Thursday called for the International Trade Commission to investigate the illegal importation and sale of Hitachi and Sega products covered by patents it owns. Hitachi fell 4 yen to 1,250 yen and Sega lost 169 yen to 1,911 yen.

Traders said that there are no new incentives supporting NTT shares, but institutional investors appear eager to add the issue to their portfolios. NTT also looks like a laggard compared to
NTT DoCoMo
and
DDI
.

NTT DoCoMo fell 160,000 yen to 4.18 million yen while DDI slipped 26,000 yen to 840,000 yen.
Kansai Electric Power
rallied 48 yen to 1,528 yen following a report the power company plans to expand its fiber-optic network for telecom use.

Cyber Agent
, an Internet and e-mail advertising agency, debuted at 15.2 million yen, compared with the initial public offering price of 15 million yen.

On the over-the-counter market,
Masternet
, an Internet service provider, surged 100,000 yen to 4.9 million yen after the company said Thursday it will apply for listing on the planned Nasdaq Japan market.